Bridgewater-Raynham pay-to-ride program goes private

Friday

BRIDGEWATER — The elimination of the pay-to-ride transportation program next school year for Bridgewater-Raynham students who live within a mile-and-a-half of their school has left parents scrambling.

But there may yet be a solution, as Superintendent Derek Swenson announced that A&A Metro Transportation, located in Bridgewater, has agreed to pick up the program on a private-basis for both Bridgewater and Raynham students.

The new program cost, though, is a good chunk of change: $1,500 per student per school year.

But breaking that down, the cost of transportation to school amounts to $8.34 per day, A&A Metro Transportation President and CEO Tom Arrighi said, which is $4.17 per one-way trip.

“I know the ($1,500) number is frightening," he said. "I'm a lifelong resident of this town and I care about making sure we can make it affordable and workable, but until we know how many people we have committed, right now it's $1,500."

In January 2018, the Bridgewater-Raynham Regional School Committee voted to eliminate the program, effective in the 2019-2020 school year, due to cost concerns. At the time of the vote, there were 261 student using the program out of a total of 969 students eligible.

“The state ... says we’re not required to transport anyone under two miles,” Swenson said. “We do that. However, the state, for regional transportation, only reimburses (school) districts for students that are a mile-and-a-half over.”

In response, the district offered the pay-to-ride program for those students within the certain distance, Swenson said, that amounted to a $300 fee per student each year, with a family cap of $600. The school district accepted free- and reduced-lunch waivers, he noted, so some students didn’t have to pay to participate.

Because of that, and the rising cost of transportation, the district was losing money on the program, Swenson said – upward of $100,000 to $140,000 per year.

“It just became a situation where it was unsustainable,” he said.

In order to help parents out, Swenson said that school officials reached out to various area transportation companies to see if they would want to pick up the program on a private basis. Only one company, A&A Metro Transportation, showed serious interest, he said.

In a letter from Arrighi sent out to eligible families dated April 24, he noted that the cost would be $1,500 per student per school year – a stark increase from the Bridgewater-Raynham program costs.

But there are a lot of factors that go into that number, Arrighi said. Not only were the schools mixing the pay-to-ride students with the other students being bused, Arrighi said, but the school district received the state reimbursement for eligible students that helped to mitigate the overall cost.

A&A Metro Transportation, on the other hand, will solely transport the pay-to-ride students with no state reimbursement whatsoever, Arrighi said.

The largest issue, he said, is that he has no idea how many of the roughly 250 students eligible for the program will want to contract with his company for the service. The less students that participate, the more it’s going to cost the company to run the program, he explained.

And running transportation in general is expensive, Arrighi noted. He listed off cost drivers such as insurance, maintenance costs, fuel and wages as they will have to hire additional personnel.

“I’m going to try to work with people as much as I can and make it work,” he said.

Arrighi did stress that his company has provided transportation to other school districts for smaller groups of students through private contracts and students in special education. All drivers receive background checks, both CORI and SORI, and are drug- and alcohol-tested, he said.

"I want to make sure we give them the best service possible," he said. "Safe, reliable transportation."

He noted that they’re offering certain discounts to help alleviate the cost. As outlined in the letter sent out, there will be a family discount of $50 per student if they have multiple children utilizing the service. There is also a 10 percent discount if the full amount if paid upfront by Aug. 20.

And while they may be able to bring down the cost depending on participation, Arrighi said he can't make any promises.

“We’ll be able to revisit (the cost) down the road if we found out we have a large group who is going to use us but at this time, we can’t make any commitments to anything because we don’t know how many people (are interested),” he said.

In the meantime, Arrighi encourages any parents with questions or concerns to contact him directly. A questionnaire related to the program is available on A&A Metro Transportation's website, www.aametro.com, which he asks parents to fill out even if they aren't interested to get feedback.

Parents interested in the program are asked to contact A&A Metro Transportation by June 3.

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